Mask Email Addresses in Logs with Row-Level Security

Masking email addresses in logs is not just a security best practice. It’s a requirement for compliance, privacy, and trust. Exposed personal data in logs can leak through bug reports, analytics pipelines, or third-party monitoring systems. Even restricted access users may see information they should not.

The simplest approach—scrub all emails before writing to logs—often fails when debug data is generated deep in third-party libraries or complex batch jobs. The stronger solution is combining row-level security with masking, so the same protections that hide sensitive fields in the database also protect logs and query outputs.

Row-level security enforces access policies at the database layer. By defining rules that hide or transform specific fields based on the querying identity, you can guarantee that sensitive data never crosses the boundary into application memory for unauthorized users. Adding masking functions to those policies replaces the local part of an email with obfuscated characters (for example, user@example.com becomes u***@example.com).

This approach applies beyond direct queries. When your application logs query results—whether for debugging or auditing—it only ever receives masked data. This ensures compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, and other privacy frameworks without relying solely on developers to remember to mask at logging time.

Implementation steps:

1. Enable row-level security on the email-containing table.
2. Create a policy that allows full email access only to privileged roles.
3. For all other roles, apply a masking expression in the SELECT query or via computed columns.
4. Ensure your logging layer only writes the masked variant.
5. Audit and test logs with automated scans for email patterns to verify compliance.

With this method, you enforce data minimization by design. The database acts as the gatekeeper, and logs become safe for broader visibility. You eliminate the risk of accidental raw email leaks in monitoring tools or support workflows.

See how to set up row-level security with masking in minutes on hoop.dev and keep sensitive data out of your logs for good.